Kerianne (left) and Jillian (right) looking lovely in pink.

Kerianne (left) and Jillian (right) looking lovely in pink.

Here’s one of the final episodes of  In Her Shoes, tales that got left on the cutting room floor while writing Tales From Another Mother Runner.

I was running 15K near Vancouver, Washington, with two girlfriends. The course is mostly flat with a few good-sized hills. I wasn’t planning on racing; I was just running it because I do this event every year.

Around mile 2, my girlfriends and I were talking about husbands and this 70-year old guy who was near me started interjecting his marriage advice. His name was Patrick, and we ended up running together for quite a while.

Then we talked about running. He said he will never be as fast as he once was and how now when he races, it’s just a different race. It’s more just the fun of it. Plus, he always places in his age group because there are not a lot of people the 70- to 79-year-old category. He was really great company, but his pace was a bit slower than I had been running lately

The friends got further and further ahead of me. With about four miles to go, Patrick told me I should get going and join them. But I could barely see them.

I didn’t think I was going to catch up to them, but somehow I did. I just had this adrenaline. I usually start out slow anyway, then try to pick it up the second half, but this dialed up the intensity. I found myself at an uncomfortably hard pace but with enough energy to maintain it. Once I saw my friends, I thought, I’d already run this fast to get to them; I’m just going to go for it. A Beastie Boys’ song was playing at the finish line, and it propelled me across.

I definitely left everything I had on the course, which made me pretty happy. I saw my friends come in, congratulated them, then took off. I had errands to do. Hours later, one of my girlfriends called and said, “You placed second in your age group!”

I was totally shocked. Did nobody else enter in my age group or what? What the heck?

Patrick didn’t just teach me about marriage: He taught me something about saving myself in the early stages of the race so I could have gas in the tank at the end.

—Jillian (Favorite treat after a run is a tall bottle of HUB Seven Grain Stout. “Obviously healthy: seven grains!”)